I Ascend by Eric Daniel Metzgar

 

Back at the house, and in town, I had spent so much of my time listening to other people. I had hardly made much of a history of my own, so mostly I stored up other peoples’ stories. Most of them were duller than farm work, but some were wilder than anything I could’ve ever thought to imagine.

There was one story I heard on a summer Wednesday at the fair. I was standing near the ferris wheel watching my nephew’s nephew go round and round. Gene Russ, a local cowboy who some thought was a bit of legend, was in front of me telling a tale to a nice-looking young girl. I’m sure he was exaggerating to impress her, but he told a story such like I’d never heard before.

He said he was riding his horse across a river during the maddest thunderstorm of the year. He said it was night and the only light came from splashes of lightning across the water. He said his horse was panicky, jumping around and soaking them both with water sprays. He said that all of sudden lightning struck the river and electricity shot all over the place. He said his legs went tingly, then numb. He said his horse tipped right over and they both started floating downstream, drowning in the waves and rain. He said that even though his legs were dead, he paddled with his arms for hours, and that all the while he held his horse’s head above water. He said they battered up against boulders and logs, that they were both cut and bleeding all throughout the water, but that he was never scared for a second.

I had to lean in closer to hear the end. A bunch of listeners had gathered around his story by then, and everyone was whispering in marvel of it. Gene was beaming. He liked the attention and kept talking with more oomph. The little girl was smitten. To be truthful, I was too.

He said that after five hours, the water was winning, and he was sinking under it. He said his horse was running out of life. He said the death of him was coming along soon. Then he said, real quiet and slow, that he felt a hand under him. Not a human hand, but bigger. He said he was cupped up and carried out of the river and dropped kindly onto the riverbank. He said that then his horse was lifted from the river, carried in the air and dropped kindly beside him onto the riverbank. Then in a concluding normal voice he said that the sun came up and dried them off- like nothing had ever happened.

I looked real hard at Gene Russ as he rounded up his story. I looked right into his eyes to see for the truth in there. I got the sense that something in his story had really happened. Because besides his joy at owning such a whopper of a story, something chilling spoke to me from behind his eyes. Something strong and shining was coming forth from a place that I don’t think even Russ understood. Something about his own story scared him, and that made me mighty curious.

I spent months wondering what really happened to Russ. I didn’t have conversations about it. I just thought alone on it. I knew the river he spoke of, and I even mulled over taking a trip myself to that very spot to see if the same might happen to me. I never did. Instead, I sat on the porch and thought about God. I thought why would God bother with Gene Russ. He’d never been a great man. He’d made it into a lot of stories because he was a real drifter and people esteemed him, but he’d never built anything or made a fortune.

 

 

I wondered a lot if God really could come down and spend the time to save one person. In such a wasting away world, were a man and a horse drowning in a river really worth the time? When I thought of the bigness of the planet, I could always think of at least twenty better uses of God’s time.

But the part of the story that troubled me the most wasn’t even a real part of the story. My sticking part was a part that I added in my head. Mostly, when I thought of it all, I thought about a man floating beside his horse, both of them knowing that death was soon coming. I thought hard on the fact that one of them would go first, leaving the other to sink or swim away. I never could make peace with that. Without God’s  cupping hand, wasn’t there a way for both the man and the horse to die out at the same time, sort of like two young lovers in one of those old fairy tales?

I thought about this while I’d watch Deer standing out in the field. I wondered how I’d feel if she died in my holding arms. I wondered how she’d feel if I drowned away and she was left to swim alone. Either way would collapse either of us. So to God, I’d say- we want to die together and not have to know life without the other.

I thought so much about this that my wife told the minister. She told him I was thinking devilish thoughts about suicide. In our town, that was worse than stealing or murder. The preacher, on one spring Sunday, came up to me after his sermon about dying and asked me if I’d been giving much thought to the subject. I said no, figuring he’d never understand my thinking on it. Then he said my family was worried about me. I told him they were worriers and that a man can spend his thinking time any way he wanted so long as he didn’t hurt anyone with his ideas. That quieted him up and somehow he managed to quiet up my family too.

All of that is what I was thinking about while Deer and I were climbing up that mountain. I wasn’t thinking about anything like hope. I was just wondering about God’s hands and if they were in the mountains or only the rivers.

 

Deer and I stopped creeping along that sixth day and made our camp on a wide rock face covered in snow and stubby bushes. I had a taxing time finding firewood and even more of a time getting it started during the cold wind. Deer was dripping tired. She hated to rest in front of me, and would’ve stood all night leaning against a tree, so I just pulled her down because I knew she’d never walk the next day if she didn’t give her body some long rest.

I hadn’t worn my thickest coat on account that it was too hard to ride under all that fluff, so to stay warm I happily nestled against Deer, and together, we soaked up the crackling heat of the fire. I told her a few stories about funny things so she could hear my light voice and fall to sleep. After she was out, I leaned further into her side and fell asleep against the rising and falling of her big ribcage. Always around the fire we found our little living heaven.

I dreamt of nothing normal that night. I dreamt I was a baby on a cliff’s edge. I dreamt of big cities and cars. I dreamt of my father’s death and his last words to me. I dreamt of Deer and being born from her. I dreamt of getting married and doubting all the years after. I dreamt of ashes and accordions losing air.